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Mediamancy
AKA Megaphones You know that media isn't just a bunch of isolated pieces of entertainment. You see the dots and lines everywhere. A song from the flavor of the month popstar appears not just on a CD, but is played constantly on the radio, given a music video on MTV, and appears in the soundtrack of the latest romantic comedy. But it doesn't end there, because the barriers to entry have lowered. You can witness an important event, give your opinion, and the world will hear it through the internet. You can make a video, and the world will applaud at the end. But you see even further, because the connections don't just end at the credits. The audience keeps on creating, based on what others created. So you keep on creating, because you know that others will follow in your footsteps. And you stay tuned in to watch the network unfold. One of the latest post-modern schools, Mediamancy grew from the movement of the internet integrating all media. Media has become about anybody being able to create media, a sort of democratic process where things that people enjoy become massively popular, while everything else becomes lost in the shadow. Meanwhile, in the background, corperations wrestle to maintain their hold on the media via buying and controlling every aspect they can. All of this both cheapened and personalized media. Nowadays, anyone can easilly whip out a camera and film a poorly scripted comedic piece, write a short story involving an imported version of themself getting down with their favorite character, etc. and gain the attention of hundreds. This meant that TV, although it was still prevailent, wasn't this thing that was laughing at simultaniously anymore. Because of this, Vidiots blame Megaphones for the slow decay of their art, even though that decay is what spawned Mediamancy. The central paradox of Mediamancy is that the modern media belongs to everyone. There is no central, unifying voice. Creating media is like shouting to a crowd, in a room that's filled with a hundred other voices who are shouting just as loud as you are. It's a struggle to generate any sizable audience when there's 30 other people peddling a similar product. Blast: Media hits the mind, not the body. Mediamancy's minor blast requires Significant charges. (Though it can be upgraded to a Significant blast in the right circumstances, see Brain Scrub below.) Stats Generate a Minor Charge Spend four hours continuously observing the media - Youtube surfing, crawling your Facebook, flipping through Twitter, maybe even channel surfing, the mojo doesn't care, so long as you don't completely stop for any reason. (Dividing your attention between it and another task is fine, but the focus required will make all but the most trivial or unimportant tasks impractical to perform - unless you took a lot of points in Do Two Things At Once, in which case the GM ought to make things easier as a function of that skill...) Generate a Significant Charge Create a work of media that is witnessed by a minimum of 1000 people, of which 900 must not know you. An episode of a TV series, a blog post, a Facebook status, a Youtube video... hell, a Youtube comment, so long as enough people intentionally see it. Furthermore, each work you have created will get you another charge when 10,000 people have seen it, another when the viewer count hits 100,000, and a fourth at 1,000,000... provided you have not tabooed since creating the work. Generate a Major Charge Create a work of media that transcends its original medium and enters the public consciousness writ large. Were Mediamancy old enough, most of Monty Python would qualify; in more relevant examples, many megaphones quest to make the next Rickroll, or the next Crazy Frog. Taboo Finger on the pulse! If you spend three continuous hours both awake and not observing social media, you taboo and cannot generate charges until you start looking again. This has to be a long enough observation to comprehend one instance of media, although that can take mere seconds. Random Magick Domain Mediamancy primarily governs beliefs, opinions, and emotions, as these are what the source of its powers are seen to affect. Its ability to obtain verifiable information is wanting, but present - you couldn't check an archive, or learn something that "everybody knows", but you could observe events as they happen. Minor Formula Spells 'World News' - 2 minor charge The megaphone must handle a phone, laptop, or other device for consuming New Media to cast this spell. For the next two hours, its screen will display a live feed, as if from an invisible camera hovering behind their head. This will generally follow the adept, but focus on things that would be of particular interest to them - even if the adept is not aware that the chosen focus would interest them. For 2 more minor charges, World News may follow a person other than the caster. 'O RLY?' - 1 minor charge This spell sows doubt and skepticism into an audience, compelling them en masse to question the truth of a statement. The number of audience members actually directly affected is no more than the casting roll, but that's typically enough for a crowd. This can be cast as a reaction against a skill check made to convince the audience of something; unless it was already a crit or a failure, it is treated as a non-matched failure for game purposes as the audience remain suspicious. 'Seen Worse' - 1 minor charges This spell may be used in reaction to a stress check. Success dulls the sting of the offending stimulus, as if it's nothing really serious, nothing that shock sites haven't prepared you for. Consequently, you ignore the stress check, and do not gain any failed or hardened notches from it. Significant Formula Spells 'Seeing Goats' - 1 significant charge Most megaphones would rather forget the reason for the name of this spell. The target of the spell is bombarded by shocking visual imagery, as well as having the expected reactions to seeing it for the first time piped into his brain directly. As a result, the victim takes a Violence or Unnatural check equal to the tens digit of the casting roll - caster's choice, based on the images used in the bombardment. For an additional significant charge, the spell will partially blind the victim even if he passes the stress check, imposing a -30 shift on skill checks requiring the use of his eyes for 1 round. 'Correction' - 1 significant charge Similar to the Infomancy spell "Doctored Records", this spell lets you change a single instance of media with a touch. (The editor, being lazy, suggests you look up Doctored Records for the details.) 'Brain Scrub' - 1 significant charge This is the Mediamancy blast. Normally, this only does minor blast damage, as the school is barely connected to the physical realm. However, the target takes significant blast damage if they are looking at a piece of new media, which can then channel the blast more efficiently. 'Live Stream' - 5 significant charges In an update to the old Videomancy trick about being live on tape, this "downloads" a victim's aura into an iPhone, Blackberry, or similar mini-computer (including, admittedly, most recent mobile phones). The aura will always show on the device's screen, making it useless for It isn't the same, however. If the device in question is ever turned off, or its batteries run out, the trapped aura is released. For details that don't contradict this description, see the Videomancy spell Live On Tape. Major Formula Spells Category:Magick Category:Adepts